


Dolorosa: Disobey

by LookingForDroids



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adoption, Doubt, Eugenics, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26513086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: The Dolorosa takes a different way.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Dolorosa: Disobey

There is no precedent for this.

Porrim walks quietly through tunnels cool and dusty from disuse, her aimless footsteps taking her ever farther from the main complex. The grub she’s holding stopped making distress noises some time ago, in favor of sitting uncurled in the crook of her elbow, wiggling his little legs and staring around at the world like bare rock walls are the most fascinating thing imaginable. Sometimes he squeaks or chirps, but the sound doesn’t carry, and she’s glad of that. She hasn’t yet done anything she might be called to account for, but silence feels important, no matter how long it’s been since anyone passed this way.

It’s easy enough, if she tries, to call to mind the voice of her first teacher reminding her that life is cruel, and that prolonging the existence of the unfit will be doing them no favor. Nature has its ways, and those ways must be accepted. Grubs survive on their own, or they do not. All this, she knows, and it is only what is necessary, but the thought that will not be dislodged from her mind is that this one will not be afforded that chance. He has no lusus to claim him and no sign to mark his place, no place at all in the order as it is, and that alone is enough to mark him abomination. If they find him, the drones will cull him long before he has the opportunity to fail or thrive.

Her path has taken her close to the surface, though she does not ask herself whether it’s by coincidence or design, and it’s only a few more turnings before she‘ll see the Cavern’s mouth, and out beyond it the wild. She takes those turnings, instead of the other ones. The air turns forest-rich, instead of clean and stale. She’d forgotten what it was to live aboveground. The grub in her arms is too young to retain any memory of his time beneath the surface. She’ll take the little thing elsewhere, away from the Caverns and the drones, and she’ll leave him there, and that will be all the advantage he gets. If he was meant to die, he will, and if he’s strong enough to make it on his own – 

If he’s strong enough to make it, she thinks, he will grow into something entirely new. There is nothing else like him in the world. 

There are hundreds of things like him in her branch of the Caverns alone, and she still wonders sometimes what some of them might have become, with only a little more luck or a little more help, but this is the one she’s holding.

Outside the cave, the sky is growing light, and day creatures call and chitter from the shelter of the trees. A good time for traveling, when one doesn’t want to be seen. She tucks the grub into the folds of her dress, close against her chest, and wraps her cloak around them both to shield him from the sun. Still no distress, only a sort of warbling coo; he feels safe with her, it seems. 

There is no point in further delay when her decision has already been made; she walks out into the blue before the dawn, and keeps on walking. It will be some time before she is missed. She does not know how much time, exactly, but enough.

 _If he was meant to die,_ she decides, _it would not have been me that found him._


End file.
